I was getting Macks ready for bed when I heard the big boom. It wasn’t two seconds later that the shrieks from both girls were heard. And then another few seconds for them to run out of the bathroom, naked and afraid.
The screams were bone-chilling. They always take a shower together in the evening while I get Macks ready for bed. I always leave the door open so I can keep a close eye on them and still get other things done at the same time. We’ve never had any issues. Until this night.
I ran into the bathroom in fear of what I was going to see. I could have sworn that one of them was hurt. But rather than seeing blood or someone hurt, I watched as water rushed out of the wall where the shower head was and my bathroom becoming flooded with water.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” they kept saying between the tears.
They knew they messed up, and they knew I was angry.
I immediately turned the water off and began screaming. The anger inside of me took over. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but it was along the lines of “What did you do? What were you thinking? I can’t believe you did this. You know better than that.”
I went back into the bathroom where water was covering the floor and the shower head that used to be attached to the wall was now sitting in the tub. I started soaking up water with a towel while I tried to control my thoughts. The girls still cried in their room and I heard them blaming each other for the sequence of events.
“Avery why did you do that?” Harlan yelled.
“I didn’t do it Harlan, you did,” Avery replied.
I’d get down to the bottom of who did it, but I was positive that both were in on in.
After the water was cleaned up, I went into their room to get the story. Harlan chimed in saying that they were playing slide, but didn’t give me the specifics. Avery said that Harlan was swinging on the shower head (we had one of those with two shower heads and one was handheld with a hose.) While neither would tell me the exact story, it looked like Harlan was playing Jane of the Jungle and decided that the hose was her vine. As soon as she put her weight on it, the thing detached from the wall spraying water everywhere.
While I’d typically be upset about this on every other occasion, this day was particularly worse. Not only was I leaving the next day with all three kids for our trip to Florida, but I’d just been asked to do a segment that next morning and had to run around town all evening getting the items to prepare for the segment. Having to replace a shower head and fix a flooded bathroom only added to my stress.
As I walked out of the girls’ room to finally put Macks to bed (he’d been standing in shock by the bathroom door,) I hear Harlan yell, “I know you won’t like us ever again.” Followed by, “I don’t want to go and live with another family.” Not sure where those ideas came from, but the extremity of them made me laugh.
I put Macks to bed and went back into the bathroom to see if I could fix the shower head at all. I tried and as soon as the water turned on, water went everywhere else but through the shower head.
I texted MacKay to see where he was, because I was still so angry and so stressed. I brought the girls inside the bath to finish taking a fake shower (because despite being in the shower for 15 minutes, they failed to wash their hair or their body.) I washed them in silence, not sure of what to say.
When MacKay made it home, I’d finally cooled off. I went into the girls room to talk about what happened. I told them that while I was upset at them for doing something they knew they weren’t supposed to do, I never stopped loving them. I referred to Harlan’s comments on not liking them or moving to a different family and told her that those things would never happen. That there are going to be many things that happen in our lives that make me upset or that I do that make them upset, but that doesn’t change our love for one another. We talked over what happened, what their consequence was for their actions, and I kissed them to sleep.
As I headed out that evening to run my errands, which included buying a new shower head, I thought over the events from that evening. It had been a while since I’d been that upset over something that the girls’ did. I wasn’t proud of the way that I reacted, yet what still mad over the events that occurred. It saddened me that Harlan’s first thought was that I wouldn’t like her anymore or that she would go and live with another family (although it is laughable because it’s so far-fetched.)
I took this as a learning experience for all of us. There will be plenty of times in our lives when I’ll be upset at them for making a decision that they know isn’t in their best interest and they will be upset at me for a decision that I make that might not be exactly what they want. But as I told the girls that night. No matter how upset I am or how upset they are at me, we always have love. And love conquers all.
